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Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|''"Are you a rag-tag band of adventurers with unclear goals and good hearts? ...[[Genre Savvy|Yeah, you people are my biggest threat]]."''|'''Galgarion''', ''[[RPG World (Webcomic)|RPG World]]''}}
This mission is important. The fate of the battle, nay, the war, nay, the ''entire world'' rests on the outcome. Who has the capability to stick it out, to give the good guys the victory they desperately need? This calls for a special team. The group of experienced, highly skilled, professional, team-oriented experts? Not them. The assorted group of ex-con lowlife inexperienced [[Jerkass|jerkasses]] who are trying to off their [[Officer and A Gentleman|commander]] [[Teeth
'''This is usually [[Justified Trope]] in one or more of several ways:'''
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If the characters were not forced on the team -- [[Condemned Contestant]], [[Boxed Crook]] -- they often join to be [[Lonely Together]]. [[Foil|To contrast]] their diversity, their enemies will likely be [[Alike and Antithetical Adversaries|all homogenous in one way,]] typically by being highly collaborative professionals.
Compare with [[Character
In the world of sports, this trope counts double. Last year's Super Bowl champions don't stand a chance against a random group of ex-cons, couch potatoes, and [[Animal Athlete Loophole|farm animals]], with [[Improvised Training]], who are almost guaranteed to pull out [[Down to The Last Play|a last-minute win]].
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** To be more specific: the protagonist crew consists of members who are noted as being the best at their respective roles, but who otherwise don't really mesh in a uniform way like most other crews in the series. The crew currently consists of a [[Cloudcuckoolander]] [[Rubber Man]], a [[Blood Knight]], a [[Classy Cat Burglar]], a [[Blatant Lies|blatant liar]], a [[Good Smoking, Evil Smoking|chain-smoking]] [[Chivalrous Pervert]], a [[Voluntary Shapeshifter|form-changing]] [[Talking Animal|talking reindeer]], a [[All of the Other Reindeer|global pariah]], an eccentric [[Cyborg]], and [[Dem Bones|an undead skeleton]].
* ''[[Gintama (Manga)|Gintama]]'' has two: The Yorozuya and the Shinsengumi. Although frequently in opposition, when they are...pointed in the same direction, they can do a lot of damage.
* ''[[Yu Yu Hakusho (Manga)|Yu Yu Hakusho]]''. Somewhat justified in that three of the four are forcibly recruited--the main character has to work for the [[Celestial Bureaucracy]] since they [[First
* The {{spoiler|Muto Extermination Squad}} in ''[[Busou Renkin (Manga)|Busou Renkin]]''. Put together because the only leader who could keep them in line is a [[General Ripper]], and they are on their important task because everyone else is dealing with a bigger threat. Especially notable because they are the antagonists.
* The Varia in ''[[Katekyo Hitman Reborn (Manga)|Katekyo Hitman Reborn]]''. The future arc shows Bel and Levi apparently wanting to kill Fran. This of course is followed by Bel sticking knives in Fran's back.
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* ''[[Red Dawn (Film)|Red Dawn]]'' has this with a group of teens fighting the [[Dirty Communists|evil]] [[Useful Notes/Reds With Rockets|Soviets]].
* ''[[Inglourious Basterds (Film)|Inglourious Basterds]]'' has a lovely [[Reconstruction]] of the classic military sort. The Basterds are a bunch of Jewish-American [[Sociopathic Soldier|Sociopathic Soldiers]] (joined by one angry Austrian Jew and one psychotic German traitor) willing to do [[Pay Evil Unto Evil|all kinda of horrible things]] to the Nazis. Their quirkiness works for them, as legends sprout around them.
* The kids relegated to being just "Hero Support"(sidekicks) in the titular high school for superheroes, ''[[
* The Cutters in ''Breaking Away''.
* The cheap ''[[Charlie's Angels (TV)|Charlies Angels]]'' rip-off ''[[Angels Revenge]]''. It features a teacher, a Vegas lounge singer, a [[Sassy Black Woman]], an [[Dragon Lady|Asian martial artist]], a [[Fiery Redhead]], and a [[Tagalong Kid|pigtail-wearing teenager]] waging war against a drug cartel. [[Mystery Science Theater 3000 (TV)|MST3K]] had fun with this one.
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* ''[[Black Sheep Squadron]]'' (originally titled ''Baa Baa Black Sheep'') is about the exploits of a squadron of misfit pilots fighting the Japanese in the South Pacific during [[World War II]]. One pilot has crashed so many times he's technically a Japanese ace. Others are drunks, insubordinate brawlers, Japanese-American pacifist mystics, or just plain crazy. Their commander is a drunk, insubordinate, over-the-hill ex-Flying Tiger who whips them into shape and turns them into the terrors of the South Pacific. It's based on a true story, and while the misfit tendencies of the squadron members themselves are highly exaggerated, Gregory "Pappy" Boyington, the squadron commander, was if anything MORE of a drunken misfit [[Magnificent Bastard]] than the one in the TV series.
* ''[[Torchwood (TV)|Torchwood]]'' details the exploits of a band of misfits who seem to have nothing in common save the fact they are [[Everyone Is Bi|all inexplicably bisexual]]. In fact, almost as many episodes (including the apocalyptic season finales) deal with the team members fighting each other as with the supposed premise of protecting Earth (or, at least, [[Aliens in Cardiff|Cardiff]]) from aliens.
* ''[[Blake's Seven
* ''[[Firefly (TV)|Firefly]]'' is essentially the ragtag bunch of misfits [[Recycled in Space|IN SPACE!]].
* ''[[Farscape (TV)|Farscape]]'' is basically this [[Recycled in Space|IN SPACE]] too. Of course, they're pretty awesome anyway, since the misfits are comprised of kick-ass ex-soldiers and convicts.
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** But the king is probably ''[[Power Rangers Wild Force]]'', which is a [[Raised By Natives]] [[Nature Hero]], a [[Kid Hero]] semi-pro bowler, a [[Gentle Giant]] florist, a college student, and an Air Force vet. At least the other teams came off as roughly the same age/maturity level (barring when a [[Mentor]] joins the group).
** What do you get when you put together a team comprised of a [[Standardized Leader|former Air Force pilot]]; a [[Wide Eyed Idealist]] "simple mechanic" (who is [[Bonnie Scotland|SCOTTISH!]]); a former [[Rich Bitch]] who [[Took a Level In Badass]]; an incompetent ex-cartel member who is [[Giving the Sword To A Noob|completely unqualified to handle advanced weaponry]] (but [[Meta Guy|often points out]] [[Only Sane Man|the ridiculousness of the situation they're all in]] to comedic effect); a [[Half-Human Hybrid|half-human hybrid]] with [[Laser-Guided Amnesia|no memories of either his past or his identity]]; and twin hyperactive [[Psychopathic Manchild|psychotic adult children]] who, despite being geniuses, are obsessed with [[Stuff Blowing Up|things that go BOOM!]]--all led by an [[Kuudere|emotionally closed off]] [[Teen Genius]] scientist with [[No Social Skills]] and [[Tear Jerker|one depressing backstory]]? The team from ''[[Power Rangers RPM (TV)|Power Rangers RPM]]''. Aren't you glad they're the ones who must protect the last remaining city on earth against a renegade computer virus?
* ''[[
** Mostly averted in the ''[[
* ''[[Glee (TV)|Glee]]'' gets its entire premise from this. A [[Cool Teacher]] takes on the worst Glee club in the state consisting of an obnoxious diva, the school's star quarterback, a [[Camp Gay]] who also plays football, a pregnant cheerleader, a [[Jerk Jock]], a [[Sassy Black Woman]], a stuttering Asian [[Perky Goth]], a nerd in a wheelchair, and two more cheerleaders and two more football players.
** Lampshaded in Journey to Regionals, with Olivia Newton John saying that the whole [[Ragtag Bunch of Misfits]] trope is overused and that everyone expects the underdogs to win. {{spoiler|Not this time.}}
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* As the title of the show may suggest, this is pretty much the whole premise of 2009 sci-fi drama ''[[Misfits (TV)|Misfits]]'', which chronicles the escapades of five slightly disturbed and anti-social young offenders doing community service, who develop superpowers after being caught in a freak [[Lightning Can Do Anything|electrical storm]].
** And ~15 years earlier, the ''[[Misfits of Science]]''.
* ''[[Lost (TV)|Lost]]'''s cast includes a spinal surgeon, a fugitive, a con man, a [[One
** As seasons passed, you could add an immortal [[Badass Spaniard]], a [[Deadpan Snarker]] pilot, a [[Magnificent Bastard]], a [[Handicapped Badass]] who has always been an [[Unwitting Pawn]], {{spoiler|a puff of smoke transformed into the previous [[Unwitting Pawn]] and another immortal who had the job to keep this puff of smoke on the island and who might be a God}}. [[Loads and Loads of Characters]] indeed.
*** Don't forget a [[Con Man]] / [[Jerk With a Heart of Gold]] and a [[Sympathetic Murderer]]. Well, I guess she's supposed to be sympathetic.
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** Hell, the entire 597th could be considered a ragtag bunch of misfits. Of course, given the 40k universe's casually lethal nature, it's a good thing that they get constant reinforcements from Valhalla...
** Colonel Schaeffer's Last Chancers. Recruited from penal planets and given the opportunity to redeem themselves by dying for the Emperor.
** The 40k fanfilm ''[[Damnatus]]'' follows the same idea, centering around a squad of mercenaries conscripted by the Inquisition to root out a suspected Chaos cult. There's the leader [[Badass Normal|von Remus]], sidekick [[Knight in Sour Armour|Corris]], big guy [[Hot
** A lot of Inquisitors' retinues tend to end up as this as well since Inquisitors frequently recruit people that they meet during their work with the only criteria being competence and loyalty.
*** It should also be noted that the people they recruit can be of any social status or have any kind of occupation, too. For instance, one member of Amberley Vail's retinue used to be a former fast food seller.
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** Don't forget the most "normal" of the crew: a punk-rock chick with a penchant for exceptional art.
* [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] by Agatio in ''[[Golden Sun (Video Game)|Golden Sun]]: The Lost Age'': "Well, this is an unlikely bunch of ragamuffins."
* Every team in ''[[City of Heroes (Video Game)|City of Heroes]]'' (and many other [[Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game|MMORPGs]], really) except particularly coordinated ones, given the [[Fantasy Kitchen Sink]] nature of the superhero genre, and also the casual-friendly nature of the game where it's not uncommon for the fate of the world to be in the hands of a team that may include one or more of the following: A 13-year-old, a 60-year-old, a drunk, a [[Furry Fandom]], a [[How Do I Shot Web?|hopeless powerlevelled newbie]], and ''maybe'' a [[Munchkin]] if you're lucky.
* While Raze's group in ''[[Mana Khemia 2 Fall of Alchemy]]'' is more-or-less a well-oiled group, Ulrika's group fits this precisely, consisting of a fairy(?) larger than Ulrika and far more timid, a guy in an animal suit/ball which said suit carries who can switch at will, a young boy with a machine obsession (and an abusive sister, but that's on Raze's side), a girl who believes curses are "incantations", and finally, Ulrika herself. In-battle, Ulrika's side is a bit more powerful than Raze's, due to tactical considerations and better overall abilities.
* In ''[[Mercenaries]] 2'', a five-person team composed of a revenge-driven merc, a snarky computer geek, a lecherous helicopter pilot, a perpetually drunken jet pilot, and a snarky mechanic, destroys the Venezuelan government, and defeats a ''superpower''-backed army as nothing more than a means to that end.
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** And if something doesn't turn up to endanger the world, one of them will usually end up endangering it themselves.
* ''[[Teh Gladiators (Webcomic)|Teh Gladiators]]'' features as its protagonists not the seasoned ''[[World of Warcraft (Video Game)|World of Warcraft]]'' veterans that one might expect, but the most improbable and possibly the least competent Arena team ever formed. Gorrok, the orc warrior, is the only actual veteran present and the [[Only Sane Man]]; his companions include Vallant, the human (sort of) hunter who's a [[The Ditz|ditz]] with [[Accidental Aiming Skills]]; and Spin, a Tauren [[New Age Retro Hippie|hippie]] who has no combat skills whatsoever. They are joined at various times by a pair of lecherous murloc [[Mad Scientist|Mad Scientists]] and [[Leeroy Jenkins]], the [[Trope Namer]] of ''[[World of Warcraft (Video Game)|World of Warcraft]]'' fame. Yet somehow they manage to win.
* In ''[[Electric Wonderland (Webcomic)|Electric Wonderland]]'', a [[Fiery Redhead]] [[Intrepid Reporter]] decides to end corruption through a hard-hitting, independently published newspaper. Who does she hire to help write? An unemployed [[Highly-Visible Ninja]], a [[Stepford Smiler]] with a mushroom costume, an outcasted [[Magical Girl]], a talking bull who's [[Too Dumb to Live]], and a [[Bratty Half
* In ''[[Nami Warriors (Webcomic)|Nami Warriors]]'', the main characters are definitively this, to the point that at least one of them directly acknowledges that this is the case.
* ''[[Bob and George (Webcomic)|Bob and George]]'' [http://www.bobandgeorge.com/archives/050916 Lampshaded]
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*** Not that she's without her own very special issues, however, as season 8 reveals. {{spoiler|She's essentially cursed to ultimately fail at everything she tries to do.}} The most normal person they meet (Wash) ''still'' has issues, what with {{spoiler|Epsilon's memories being beamed directly into his mind}} and all.
* Say, does [[Homestar Runner (Web Animation)|Homestar Runner]] count?
* Team Kimba of the ''[[Whateley Universe (Literature)|Whateley Universe]]''. A former rich kid who is now the [[Fallen Princess]]. An Army brat chased out of his own home by anti-mutant fireteams. A nerd turned into a [[Person of Mass Destruction]]. A loner who turned into [[The Chosen One]]. A motherless victim of child abuse who has spent time as a foster child. A [[Useful Notes/Transgender|transgendered]] black kid from Baltimore. A loner turned into one of [[The Fair Folk]]. And they're not the weirdest kids at [[Super
* The characters in ''[[A Game of Gods (Roleplay)|A Game of Gods]]'' come off as this. Justified in that they were taking from their home worlds by [[The Powers That Be|the Nomads]].
* The Fellowship of ''[[The Questport Chronicles (Literature)|The Questport Chronicles]]'' starts out as this: one amnesiac [[Winged Humanoid]], two elves (one of whom is an assassin), a [[Vegetarian Vampire]], a fairy, a human trapped in a dragon's body, a [[Voluntary Shapeshifting]] demon, and an easily-confused pixie.
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== Real Life ==
* The "Mille", the thousand-something volunteers that followed Giuseppe Garibaldi on his expedition to conquer Sicily and unify Italy in 1860. The youngest was 10 years old. The oldest, 70-something. There were students, poets, shopkeepers, tailors, pharmacists, bakers, former soldiers and officers of the regular army, medics, pretty much anything, including a woman, each with his own motive: fame, fortune, romance, adventure, ideals, death (reportedly one of the volunteers jumped offboard the ship twice during the trip to the shores of Sicily). They wore civilian clothing that only had in common the color red (the closest thing they had to an uniform) and were armed with old rifles obtained by tricking an army quartermaster into giving them. Besides, the rifles themselves never saw much use, since Garibaldi's tactical philosophy was "[[Hot
** This always was Garibaldi's Modus Operandi: find a big country, assemble a ragtag bunch of misfits, and go kick asses. Sometimes, Garibaldi's troops were fighting long after the rest of the country they were fighting for had been crushed: during the Uruguayan civil war, the regular Uruguayan forces were crushed at the battle of Arroyo Grande: Garibaldi's ragtag bunch of [[I Die Free|former slaves]] and [[Evil Foreigner|immigrants]] [[The Siege|held the city]] for ''nine years'' and eventually won the war.
* The ships that ended up discovering the Americas originally had an overwhelming majority of criminals and other lowlifes as their crews, as they weren't even expected to make it through alive, let alone come back. (Predictably, malnutrition and illnesses did end up mowing a lot of them down on the way.) This also partly explains the horrible [[Moral Event Horizon|treatment]] the natives suffered.
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* [[Reddit]] and [[Image Boards|4chan's /v/ board]] had a competition in ''[[Starsiege Tribes|Tribes: Ascend]]''. Team Reddit was a well-coordinated, heavily practiced team with high-end computers; Team 4chan was a hastily-gathered team of /v/irgins run by a [[Furry Fandom|furry]] with a tripcode and a Brazilian sniper with 140 ping playing on toasters. 4chan won 3-2.
{{quote| "WE WINNERS NOW"}}
* The army of [[Useful Notes/Chad|Chad]] counts as this in the [
* The British Army lives and dies by this trope. One of the first modern armies, the New Model Army was a complete subversion (English, but the framework for the British army was laid here), made up primarily of professional soldiers who had been fighting against the Royalists...until they were only able to fill about two thirds of places. After which, the Army lowered it's standards. From then on, to about 1914, the Army was been considered the second service to the far more prestigious and skilled Navy, taking on colossal numbers of thieves, rapists, murderers and arsonists, then moving on to those who have failed their [[GCS Es]]. This trope was so prevalent during the Napoleonic Era that the Duke of Wellington noted how wonderful it was to make so much of them. This applies less to other armies as they tended to still take Peasant Levies, meaning the men were required to serve whatever their profession, or have a very elite air and esprit de corps (the French, up until 1812).
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[[Category:Sports Story Tropes]]
[[Category:Ragtag Bunch Of Misfits]]
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